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Various Artists
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No Depression: What It Sounds Like (Vol. 1)
Dualtone Music Group
Release: 3/9/2004
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Rated:
Review by:
Lindsey M. Keen
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One day, if you're lucky, your favorite magazine and record
label will join forces to create the ultimate CD featuring the
year's best artists in Folk and Alternative Country music.
Well, that day has come and No Depression: What It
Sounds Like (Vol. 1) pays tribute to the late and great
Godfather of country music, Johnny Cash; gifted singer
Allison Moore; soulful songwriter Buddy Miller (who's penned
radio hits for Lee Ann Womack); Louisiana-bred musicians
Kevin Gordon with Lucinda Williams; Hayseed, an interpreter
of age-old hymns with a twist featuring the angelic voice of
Emmylou Harris; and The Carter Family, who all stand today
as "No Depression in Heaven."
Johnny Cash was in Seattle, the heart of grunge music, and
decided to take advantage of an off day by cutting a Willie
Nelson song, "The Time Of The Preacher," featuring
Soundgarden's Kim Thayill on guitar, Nirvana's Krist
Novoselic on bass, Alice In Chains' Sean Kinney on drums
and John Carter Cash on twelve-string guitar. This
collaboration touches the roots of Rock and redraws the
boundaries of Alternative Country music. And to think, what
could've happen if he had two days off?
Most recently, Emmylou Harris has been lending her time
and talent to lesser-known artists in order to generate
awareness in the overcrowded music industry landscape.
This time she's handpicked Christopher Wyant, aka Hayseed,
a rural man raised in the bluegrass land of Kentucky.
Together, their harmony beautifies the simplicity of
traditional hymns that were left in the churches and are now
brought back to life for all to hear.
If The Carter Family could cry out one prayer to their fans
below, it would probably be that listeners truly feel no
depression and to pay homage only by promising to listen
and preserve their music. It seems with that in mind that
Dualtone Music Group and No Depression, the
bimonthly Alternative Country music magazine, delved deep
into their vaults for the closing track for the compilation -
"No Depression in Heaven" by The Carter Family dates back
to the 1930's. Just free from the restraints of the Depression
Era, a family finds a way to declare that there's "No
Depression" in a ife free from trouble and hopes that one
day heaven will take them in and save their soul.
No Depression: What It Sounds Like (Vol. 1) is
the inaugural CD of this series and there are plans of many
more volumes to come. |
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